It makes sense ... the more a group demonizes their perceived enemy, the more distance there is between their own identity and that of "the other" ... and the easier it is to accept the severity of their judgement.
Posts by leec
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28outted!!
by chickpea infollow this brief convolution for a second:.
bex and i are friends from the kh we had attended.
i found a friend of bex's, leesa, also from that same.
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128
The upside of atheism
by paul from cleveland ini realize whether you believe in god or the non-existence of god it has to be taken on faith since both positions are unknowable and unprovable.
however, i can understand faith in god as basically a hope for something better.
i can also understand agnosticism; admitting it's unknowable but still leaving the door open (perhaps the only intellectually honest option).
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leec
Love is a human invention. Only humans can love.
Other animals may have an equivalent, something that is reasonably translatable, but I think it would be presumptuous to assume it's the same as human love.
I do love God, but since by (my) definition God is not subject to human limitations, God does not love. I believe in this case the reasonable equivalent, what people would call "God's love" is far more than that. Like everything else in the realm of the infinite, it's something that mere human intellect (or emotion for that matter) can't even begin to comprehend.
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128
The upside of atheism
by paul from cleveland ini realize whether you believe in god or the non-existence of god it has to be taken on faith since both positions are unknowable and unprovable.
however, i can understand faith in god as basically a hope for something better.
i can also understand agnosticism; admitting it's unknowable but still leaving the door open (perhaps the only intellectually honest option).
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leec
How can people debate whether or not they believe in "God" without even knowing what each person's opinion is of the definition of that word?
Possible definitions of God:
- Jehovah God in the JW religion
- an immortal and all-powerful being of unknown form
- some generalization of God across most Judeo-Christian religions
- an ambiguous "higher power" relative to human beings
- all of nature; i.e. the universe and everything in it
- a rambunctious 4 year old kid playing with his toy universe (which contains our universe), in some much larger uber-universe
- many etcs
If one's not going to believe in something, it's probably a good idea to know what he's not believing in first.
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49
Should I believe in the Trinity?!
by TTWSYF inhello all, i had some questions regarding the booklet 'should you believe in the trinity?
' i should mention that i'm a catholic and my brother is a jw baptised some 15-20 years ago.
since he found 'the truth' he had been quite vocal regarding the manyu, many false teachings of the catholic church.
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leec
I'm an ex-'born-in RC' if there is such an expression. One of the things taught to me in the years and years of parochial school and catechism, that never made the damnedest bit of sense to me, was the trinity. In my opinion, it's dumb. But whether you believe in the trinity or not, the only difference is where you draw the line between the logical and what you have to have 'faith' in to accept. Trinity requires more faith and less logic earlier on in the though process ... but the transition from one to the other still occurs if you don't beleive in it, just a bit farther down in the thinking.
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23
Has anyone ever felt they were possessed by a demon?
by dissed init was the "in-thing" to happen to sinners in jesus' time, being possessed.
some could boast they had legions of demons calling their body home.. it was also a primary miracle for the top christians to perform, ridding demons away, proof you had god's spirit.
"be gone you demon!!".
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leec
some 23 y.o. punk, all full of himself, claims to be annointed and leads everyone in ring-around-the rosie? Wtf is this?
How does this annointed junk work anyway? Does someone tell you that, congrats, you're annointed, or do wake up one morning after eating a spicy burrito and recall a dream where you were obviously informed that you are annointed, and then you go and let everyone else know?
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To those who were born in
by poopsiecakes inwhile you were a witness, did you ever play the what if game?
i would occasionally sit with my friends and wed bandy the ideas around...if we werent born in would we be interested if someone knocked at our door...would we want to go to college...would we be promiscuous.... it was interesting to hear the responses and i think about that now.
one thing i always knew was that if someone knocked at my door a) chances are i wouldnt answer and b) although i would be polite, i would not have any interest whatsoever.
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leec
I'm not born-in, so maybe my reply isn't that interesting, but this issue of knocking on doors is one I've been thinking about for a long time. Back in the days of Russell and Rutherford it was a normal practice to go around knocking on people's doors - just in general for many different reasons. Traveling salesmen used that as their primary means of doing business. When there was a knock at the door, people would generally answer it.
100 years later I think it's a very different world. Personally, I never answer the door unless I am expecting someone and then look to see that I recognize the person (or that they're at least from UPS or some other official agency I would want or need to interact with). Other than that though, the entire practice of going around knocking on doors for any reason - canvassing, selling, preaching ... it's outmoded and dying away.
If JWs are governed by a body who is generally not up on changing times (which seems very much to be the case), then maybe this is a reason for their failure to gain much additional popularity among 'worldy folk.'
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23
Has anyone ever felt they were possessed by a demon?
by dissed init was the "in-thing" to happen to sinners in jesus' time, being possessed.
some could boast they had legions of demons calling their body home.. it was also a primary miracle for the top christians to perform, ridding demons away, proof you had god's spirit.
"be gone you demon!!".
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leec
When Santa comes down my chimney, the Easter Bunny is found hopping in my backyard, and the angel Moroni and Xenu drop by for tea, I'll consider that question seriously.
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A talk by Bro. Butts emailed to me: His experiences are such BS
by Magwitch indo you think any of the following experiences are true?
they are so far fetched they are almost humorous.
title: let's all make it to the finish line...[sr from patterson] bro.
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leec
well since a JW said them they cant be lies, so i guess they are for illustrative purposes only ...
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52
If we are a product of evolution why the need of specific elements in nature?
by cyberjesus infor years i believed that god had created all the plants and their elements and nutrients specifically for us.
yesterday as i was walking at the getty museum was smelling the garlic plants in the garden and made me wonder.
if we are a product of evolution and the survival of the fittest, why do we depend on a wide variety of plants to survive?
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We were ALL conspiracy theorists once
by cofty ini have noticed an tendency towards conspiracy theories among the ex-jw community.
others, like myself are allergic to anything that hints of belief in a conspiracy.
then it occurred to me that this should not be surprising; the teachings of the borg amount to a conspiracy theory more fanciful than anything ever promoted by david ike and his ilk (see what i did there?).
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leec
"I have noticed an tendency towards conspiracy theories among the ex-jw community."
... a meta-conspiracy theory